Cardiotocography is a means of recording the fetal heartbeat and uterine contractions during pregnancy. Physicians have used this method, also known as external fetal monitoring, since the late 1970's. Two separate transducers perform simultaneous recordings of fetal heart rate and uterine contractions when placed externally on a woman's abdominal wall. In particular, an ultrasound transducer measures the fetal heart and a pressure-sensitive contraction transducer, also known as a tocodynamometer (toco), measures the tension of the maternal abdominal wall, which is an indirect measure of the intrauterine pressure. Both the ultrasound and toco transducers can be kept in place on the woman's abdomen with either a belt or a band.
Women can be monitored for days and or weeks depending on their risk needs. Women in labor are also monitored at the very least for approximately 20-40 minutes upon arrival to a hospital and then throughout the course of their labor. The time women are monitored can vary depending on their needs in labor as assessed by the provider. Despite the often extensive duration of external fetal monitoring, the external fetal monitoring equipment is heavy and inflexible. The equipment is also ridged and often leaves indentations on the woman's body. It is also challenging to trace the fetal heart rate using the equipment because the fetus will often move during monitoring and it can be time consuming to constantly adjust the transducers and belts during labor and birth. Moreover, patients often take off the transducers because of their discomfort. The transducers can also slide and lose position and therefore result in discontinuous readings during external fetal monitoring. While the readout device used with the fetal monitoring equipment has been modified to display information about multiple fetuses, the woman's blood pressure, and various other vital statistics, the design of the toco and ultrasound transducers have not changed since the introduction of external fetal monitoring.
Therefore, what is needed in the art is a product that can provide more comfortable and improved external fetal monitoring. In addition, the product should reduce the time and effort expended by the provider during external fetal monitoring. With these goals in mind, the inventor has created padded, pliable device to be used with the ultrasound and toco transducers to improve comfort during external fetal monitoring and allow for easy and continuous tracing of the fetal heart rate. The inventor has also created a device to maintain the positions of the transducers during external fetal monitoring. By maintaining the position of the transducers, the device also stabilizes the transducers to allow for improved, more comprehensive, continuous, and uninterrupted ultrasound and toco transducer readings during external fetal monitoring.